Stories and comments from the author's musical and political life: by John F Goodman

Menu

Tag Archives: Jeff Sessions

It’s like something out of the Mafia. The Capo “made” his chief administrator and now puts the knife in him. Well, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. As others have said, “Never trust a man with no lips.”

If ever two more dissimilar people deserved each other, it’s Trump and Sessions. In a most revealing interview last week with the New York Times, the Capo expressed his displeasure: “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else . . . . So Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. I then have—which, frankly, I think is very unfair to the president.” That man was disloyal.

Trump then continued to rant on about Rosenstein (his deputy attorney general) while making a series of charges all focused on Robert Mueller, who is investigating the Russian connection and, now, the Trump business network that has operated in Russia. He called it “‘a violation’ for Mueller to look at his family’s financial dealings beyond anything involving Russia, for example.”

“Would that cross a red line for you?” the Times asked.

“I would say yeah. I would say yes.”

Finally it should now be obvious to everyone that it’s the family business deals and their Russian connections that Trump would protect at all costs. And it is precisely those areas that Mueller is looking at—including the Trump tax returns.

I think Trump’s demise, when and as it occurs, will clearly be owing to these business connections and their revelations. He’s been doing business in Russia for at least 30 years; some of the seamy connections are catalogued here. You can be sure the web is quite intricate and could take Mueller & Co. a long time to untangle.

But now the Capo is so scared of what may come out that his legal team is looking at the prospect of pardons for his family and aides—and maybe for himself. And a whole series of articles on the Russian business scandals is brewing.

But even if Trump has no memory of the many deals that he and his business made with Russian investors, he certainly did not “stay away” from Russia. For decades, he and his organization have aggressively promoted his business there, seeking to entice investors and buyers for some of his most high-profile developments. Whether Trump knew it or not, Russian mobsters and corrupt oligarchs used his properties not only to launder vast sums of money from extortion, drugs, gambling, and racketeering, but even as a base of operations for their criminal activities. In the process, they propped up Trump’s business and enabled him to reinvent his image. Without the Russian mafia, it is fair to say, Donald Trump would not be president of the United States.

The problem underlying the inquiry into Trump’s financial ties isn’t simply whether he currently has projects there; it’s whether his dealings leave him indebted to the Russian government or the nation’s oligarchs, which could compromise his decision-making.

Mueller is also investigating other Trump financial transactions. Trump’s opaque business dealings include a lot of shady figures, including members of the Russian mafia. Why has Trump adamantly refused to disclose his tax returns, even at a significant cost to himself? And why does he appear to be so terrified at Mueller looking under these rocks? The simplest explanation is that he is probably hiding something deeply incriminating.

Another simple explanation is that the Capo will try to protect his famiglia at all costs. But what happens when the Godfather is a compromised imbecile?

“I will say that never has there been a president, with few exceptions—in the case of F.D.R. he had a major Depression to handle—who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than what we’ve done. We’ve been about as active as you can possibly be, and at a just about record-setting pace.”

“We thank you for the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda,” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said. “Greatest privilege of my life, to serve as vice president to a president who’s keeping his word to the American people,” said Vice President Mike Pence. “You’ve set the exact right message,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions, adding, “The response is fabulous around the country.”

Response has indeed been fabulous. CNBC’s John Harwood called this “like a scene from the Third World.” Others tweeted that Trump sounded like King Lear demanding praise from his daughters. Chuck Schumer put up a spoof video with his staff praising him (see below). James Comey should have tweeted “See what I mean?”

One imagines Kim Jong Un holding a similar meeting, no? President Duterte holds them frequently.

In the real world, Robert Mueller has more than hinted that the Russian investigation is getting closer to Mr. Trump. There is widely reported disquiet in the White House about heads to roll and insufficient loyalty to the president. His approval ratings continue to drop; they are now at 36 percent (disapproval at 59 percent). Promised legislation on health care, taxes and infrastructure is mired in the mud of Republican incompetence.

And so it was time for a little heartfelt ego boosting, a sophistical tribute to Mr. Trump by his sycophantic cabinet. The only honest one in the room was Mike Pompeo, the CIA director, who said: “I am not going to say a damn thing in front of the media.” And the reign of the prima donna continues.

Unless you believe in charter schools, corporatism über alles, and more pollution, it’s the nightmare version of the American Dream.

Trump’s most egregious pick so far may be fast-food CEO Andrew Pudzer (right) for secretary of labor. Instead of people, the Putzer has proposed automation for restaurants “because machines were ‘always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall or an age, sex or race discrimination case.’” They don’t give you shit about minimum wage either.

Betsy DeVos is proposed for education secretary. She has no qualifications beyond spending a fortune to promote charter schools, vouchers and Christian education. Trump’s man to head the EPA, Scott Pruitt, does not believe in climate change, calls global warming a myth, and has brought several suits against the EPA.

Trump has already nominated Steven Mnuchin―a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner, former George Soros employee and co-investor, “foreclosure machine” and hedge fund manager―to be treasury secretary. He also named billionaire private equity investor Wilbur Ross as his choice for secretary of commerce. Ross owned a coal mine that was cited for more than two hundred safety violations before an accident killed a dozen workers, and is a member of a secret Wall Street fraternity, where, clad in velvet slippers, he sang show tunes mocking poor people.

The star of Trump’s unreality show will be Alabama’s unreconstructed Jeff Sessions, on record for many years as opposing immigration, abortion, climate change, marijuana, gay people and blacks. Please welcome our next attorney general, the country’s chief law enforcement officer.

And of course Steve Bannon will be in Trump’s Oval Office every day as the president’s “chief strategist.” If his past and his films are any indication, everything you stupid liberals want to believe in is bad and the apocalypse is nigh. Sarah Palin and Reagan are his heroes. He’s the Leni Riefenstahl who will fill Trump’s empty mind.

With all these nominees, there’s no question of qualifications, it’s simply payoff time, sealing the deal Trump maybe not so tacitly made for money and endorsements.

I suggested last week that a new kind of labor movement could be the best way for the Trump opposition to organize. This especially makes sense because the whole focus of the Trump cabinet turns out to be anti-labor. The biggest betrayal of the entire Trump movement will be of the pathetically disoriented workers who voted for him.

The election was just a preview, and now the comedy begins in earnest. To avoid becoming totally angry and depressed about Trump, you might step back a little and take the long view. Aristotle put it best: “Comedies begin with low or base characters seeking insignificant aims, and end with some accomplishment of [those] aims which either lightens the initial baseness or reveals the insignificance of the aims.”

The curtain rises as the President-elect begins to select his new appointees. From the wings, Carl Higbee, a prominent Trump supporter, calls for reconsidering the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, this time for Muslims.

The scene opens with Kissinger on the phone with Trump, discussing some improbable scheme for world domination with the man he had refused to endorse. The surreal and absurd continues as Trump sits down with Romney this weekend—after a long series of contemptuous exchanges between the two—reportedly to convince him to come on as secretary of state.

Rudy Giuliani runs onstage intermittently to deliver incoherent tirades; David Duke praises Trump appointee General Flynn for retweeting an antisemitic comment; racist Jeff Sessions is appointed attorney general; Trump takes credit for keeping a Ford plant from moving to Mexico—when the company had no intention of moving it. OK, you get the idea. This is a Charlie Chaplin movie about paranoia and hate.

Yet these people are seriously funny if you look at them in a certain frame. Trump has often been called a buffoon and that moniker, to me, fits him perfectly. The Democrats have their own comic originals. Who could invent a character like Anthony Weiner? The Clinton campaign blames everyone else for their loss. One could say the First Woman President fell into some kind of hubris and, for her supporters, would qualify as a Tragic Figure.

Classic comedy often pits two opposing groups against each other, and never were two larger groups of Americans more opposed. Comedy has to do with solving problems and offering some kind of reconciliation. The audience keeps watching, hoping for a resolution, but the worry is that the happy ending is nowhere in sight.